For the past few weeks we have presented you with our $1500 Budget Badass and $2500 Power User PC. This week we’re bringing to the table our picks for a $2500 Pro Gaming PC. With significant price cuts since our last Pro Gaming PC build-it guide, we were able to give our gaming PC some extra juice so system lag can no longer be blamed for missing a crucial headshot. Many parts have not changed since the last update, but with new hardware technology coming soon to the computer industry, be prepared for some significant tweaks next month. But for now, here’s what we got.

Videocard

2x BFG Tech Geforce GTX280$750, www.bfgtech.com

Since the last update back in July, the GTX 280 has stayed atop the GPU powerhouse list. As the fastest single-GPU solution out there, it would only make sense to have two of these running in SLI. Unlike our Power User PC, we're shifting our main focus to the GPU(s) and this is it.

Motherboard

EVGA eForce 790i SLI Ultra$330, www.evga.com

There were some problems with Nvidia's 680i and 780i chipsets, but the 790i seems to have solved all of them. The board's native PCI-Express 2.0 and spacious layout will be a nice home for your SLI setup. Its price-to-performance ratio is just one reason why we gave this motherboard a kickass verdict.

CPU

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3GHz$165 (Retail), www.intel.com

While CPU performance is significant to a PC's ability to perform well in games, most current games (with the exception of a couple) are still not utilizing all four cores of a quad core thus leaving us with the option to choose a dual core over a quad. With the E8400, we save some extra money for an upgraded PSU and extra hard drives while keeping gaming performance at its peak.

Memory

OCZ 4GB Reaper HPC DDR3/1600$250, www.ocztechnology.com

As we've mentioned in our previous build-it guides, 4GB seems to be the new standard nowadays for any performance user. Obviously, gaming is no exception.

i spent 8 hours a day, for 4 days this week researching all my choices. basically typing and reading thru 100's of reviews for items, writing down similar mentions of other items in several reviews and researching them the same way. If you want information on anything i researched, i'd be glad to help.

some important things to note: MOTHERBOARD EVGA nForce 790i SLI FTW LGA775 ATX Motherboardmake sure this number is: 132-YW-E180-A, NOT the E179 model you get 16x on the 3rd slot, and the addition of that DIGITAL Pulse Width Modulation. HARDDRIVE be careful with the WD hard drives they you buy the 3.5" ones that come with the heat sink, they also sell ones without. PROCESSOR the E8600 has EO stepping....The new E0 stepping contains “Speed path improvements enabling higher speed bins”. This should stimulate theattention of any enthusiast who is interested in overclocking, as itcould potentially lead to greater OC’ing potential. For power misers,the E0 stepping also features a new power status indicator and new instruction extensions (XSAVE/SRSTOR), along with greener, more environmentally friendly halide-free packaging. VIDEO CARDS

these H2OC's have Hydrogen DIOXIDE written right in the name. commonly refered to as water. yes, you NEED water cooling for these, run it without, and you void your warranty. EDIT: tried to fix formatting, won't work...

I went with 2 bfg 280x H2OC video cards for
$570 each, these thing were out of stock for a while, and newegg must
have just recieved an order. not a bad deal since Danger Den, it's
partner company for these cards, charges
$144.95
for each water block. slap on the BFG lifetime warrenty and tradeup
program, and you got yourself a decent card for the money

Core Clock 680MHz (vs. 602MHz standard)

Shader Clock 1458MHz (vs. 1296MHz standard)

Memory Data Rate 2450MHz (vs. 2214MHz standard)

***MUST USE WITH WC SYSTEM***

POWER SUPPLY

well that particular power supply websight says:

*OCZ does not recommend the use of our OCZ1000EXS with 2 x
Overclocked GTX280 graphics cards. The OCZ1000EXS power supply is
certified by NVIDIA to power Two GeForce GTX280 GPUs but the
significant dynamic loading of two overclocked GTX280s may cause operational issues and is not recommended.

This chip is said to be way underrated and suppressed (standard temp WC
sytems report 4.5GHZ or better stable OC), because Intel apparently
wants to push the quad core processors harder. Unfortunately for them,
i know fully that there is virtually nothing out there that can
effectively utilize quad core, and even if there was such a beast, the
new chipset will be coming out, and i'd be willing to bed by the time
someone can fully learn how to utilize multicores, the new processors
(Nehalem) will be more mainstream, and not cost $1000's of dollars.

I chose not to wait for this new chipset because this 8600
processor is only about $275, and the Nehalem processors will be so out
of price range at least until the 1st quarter of next year, it will be
retarted.

slight improvement over the suggested board, the important thing to get out of this board is the Pulse Width
Modulation, effectively digitally controlling power by switching on and
off at such high rates, that what the capacitive components see is a
very low leak, low tolerance precise voltage that does not change from
exactly what it needs to operate. This allows for slightly higher
overclocking because voltages are much more reliable and don't
fluctuate as much, eliminating the potential for pushing a chip into
instability.(buy.com had the best price at $303 minus a $15 coupon code i googled online for the webpage)

MEMORY

OCZ PC3-12800 Platinum Enhanced Bandwidth Edition DDR3 SDRAM 1600

Sadly,
this is better then then reapers for stability, overclocking, and has
the same timing as the reapers on the 1600 model. there's more
reliability, less customer complaints, and better result. in fact,
retailers are offering discounts and instant rebates on the new reapers
to even cheaper levels then the platinum and gold (lower) models, to
reflect this fact. (newegg.com $229.99 after mail in rebate)

for such a small amount, why not? couldn't find any bad reviews about them, more then likely an oem part people don't realize they get with prebought systems, i thought 2x drives is occasionally usefull for copying quickly.

COOLING

I already have a WC system, just need to transfer it over to this one

$2680. considering i got free shipping included on just about everything but one item i bought (Googleing coupon codes and free shipping buy.com FTW), that'll easily let my choices compete with the original, plus several important upgrades (ok ok, up the price like $300 for WC and windows)

the few extra bucks were worth it to me for some very powerful upgrades.

I think PCIEx1 sound is better to open up the last slot for upgrading to TRI SLI later. I don't think a person would really need quad core until they are going to want an i7 anyway. The bulk of the money is spent on parts that will carry over. Then you can buy an i7 quad with a better cooler, another 2 Gigs of ram and another GTX 280. Oh yeah, and a couple of X25-M's in RAID O. Oh! and a 30 inch monitor of course. Phase change anyone? Oh man, I need to save up some money.....

Yea I vouche for that, I usually just buy the best one card I can the 280 gtx, then when another card comes out better, Ill have money saved up to buy another 280 gtx for sli. Like you said for pciex1 using the 3 way sli when I can I will just buy a fatality titanimum soundcard that uses the pcex1 so it will fit in, then you have one badass machine.

I like the parts, but I feel I must dispute the case and CPU cooler. Why is MaximumPC the only one toting this choice for the NZXT case, and the CNP9300 is bested my several other coolers. I would try to name them all, but the comments section is only so big.

The rest of the parts are top notch. EVGA, OCZ, Intel C2D, etc, etc. NZXT and Zalman? They make some good parts, but the case and CPU cooler could be better IMHO.

Well Im pretty sure these guys are professionals and have done reviews on things like the NZXT Case and compared to many other cases its enough room to hold alot of things, lots of airflow from the fans to keep good temperatures enough bays to accompany even an extreme storage freak, the back panel removeal lets you hide wiring from some things under the mobo, and alot of neat stuff. These guys dont just use the case for no reason, there has to be reasoning behind it, and their is.

Two GTX280s is gross overkill at anything less than 2560 x 1600, so I have to wonder how many people actually game at that resolution. I wonder what you'd suggest at 1920 x 1200. If nothing else you could step up to an E8600 and get a better starting multiplier. It's a shame they don't offer an unlocked multiplier CPU in a dual core chip, but the 10x multiplier is probably enough for most people. Right now there is no reason to go quad-core if all you do is game.

I actually like the HDD set-up, though I probably fit the power user profile batter than the pro-gamer.

I could build a better rig for that much!Forget nvidia go witha x48 and 4870x2 and i would drop the psu down to a pcpc 750wat and i would def change the ram for 4gig corsair ddr2 1066!I would up the cpu to a q9450 ftw

wow i wonder why ppl still don't realize that ati has had physx technology since early june they partnered with havoc which suppotrs way more games than nvidia at the moment and the fact that ppl didn't notice shows how it doesn't impact game play that much yet